Aphelion
by LJFX
Summary: The first werewolf comes to terms with her fate. But what will happen when the protector becomes the protected?
1. Chapter 1

1

I missed the ability to feel the cold. Sleep was almost impossible tonight, even though sleep was the only inevitable thing I could rely on these days.  
>I could feel myself getting irritable to the point of rage burning up through me, but I had to control it. Phasing right now would would be disastrous. My Mother would panic. My Father would call everybody on the Res and it would be like every night last week where they all looked at me with pitiful eyes and pained expressions. I swear if I have to see all those faces again, all the chaos and the whispers...I would leave on 4 legs. Quickly.<br>The minutes seemed to drag by as a tossed and turned, but the hour was Godly and I couldn't believe how long I'd laid here, pointlessly trying to lose myself in unconsciousness. I wasn't even sure that I was tired or if I ever would really be tired again, so I kicked off my covers and grimaced as I realized they were soaked in sweat.I really, really did miss being cold.  
>The old pine floorboards creaked more than normal as I jumped out of my bed and into the thick darkness toward the door. It's strange, I thought to myself,<br>how I'd lived here my whole life, yet I'd never felt more like a stranger in my own home than I did right now.  
>My family, we used to be so comfortable around each other. We shared this common ground where we could do and say anything, yet still have the up most respect for one another. We were always the 'Cool' guys on the reservation, all the families and kids wanted to come to our place for the parties. We weren't like other families here, and people liked that. I liked it. Now, every thing's different. I could feel the heat of anger come up through me as I relived happy memories, so I stopped and tiptoed down from my loft conversion and fought my way through the dark.<p>

I couldn't figure out what hit me first. The humming of voices bustling around me, or the light that stung my eyes. I froze for a moment, confused and a little delirious like I had just awoken. What time was it? Creeping through the dark, I peered into my mother and father's room and instantly saw the neon red digits on the bed side table. 2:45 AM. Just as it had felt. Turning back toward the yellow light downstairs, my legs took a few steps down so I could hear more clearly. Feeling a little apprehensive, I took a few more steps down, and perched on a stair.

"...I don't know, Billy." My mother's slight and gentle voice croaked. "I don't think it's a good idea. I'm worried."

"I understand, Dena. We all want what's best for Claudia. But what about La Push?"

"Why is it happening like this?" Dena pleaded. I could picture her defenseless face as she spoke. "She must feel so alone."

"We can't be sure, sweetheart." I recognized my father's voice immediately. "I don't think there's any rhyme or reason to it."

"But what do we tell her? She says she understands but she doesn't, John. How could she, if we as her elders don't understand?"  
>I could hear a light sob break in my mothers voice, and chairs scraping along the wooden kitchen floor. I could picture what was happening right now, in my family Kitchen. My Father's helpless face, sliding his kitchen chair across to my Mom, and putting his loving arms around her as she sobbed. It was a familiar picture,<br>but one I rarely saw up until two weeks ago.

I wish I could say "it had been a normal day", but it wasn't. I had woke in the morning with a terrible fever, one that filled me with genuine fear that I might burst into a ball of flames. I had never felt a heat like it before. My Mother had crept in, noticing that it was unusual for me not to be bounding about outside on a rare Sunny day in Forks. I told her I had a fever, and her motherly instincts took over instantly.  
>"I'll get you a cold towel." She smiled sympathetically, and returned with a moist flannel rolled up to lay on my head.<br>"Thank you." I muttered. Dena waited a moment, half wondering if I'd take the flannel from her, but I felt too unwell to move, so sheepishly approached me and bent down beside my head. Just as her hand placed the towel on my forehead, she hissed a gasp which shook me. I looked over, only to notice her wide eyes which were distorted by a wall of steam. I took my hand to the towel which felt blissfully cold, and the hissing came again. I stared at the condensation steaming off of it.

"John..." Dena was pressed against my bedroom wall, palms glued to it. "John you need to come up here. Now!"

"Mom...why is the towel steaming?" I didn't feel panicked. I felt awful, and now confused. "What did you put on it?" I laughed a little. It wouldn't be the first time Dena had had a dizzy moment. She was clumsy, in an endearing way. When I was 5, I got the chicken pox, and she covered me in toothpaste instead of Sudocrem.  
>"What's going on?" My father's sturdy figure strode in, eyebrows furrowed. He wore his long, black hair in a pony tail with a leather hat. He must be riding today, I thought.<p>

"Her head." Dena stammered. "Feel her head." My Dad frowned and looked at me with his slight smile gathering in his face.  
>"Her head?" he asked, bounding over to me, hand out ready. He too, bent to my level, and with a rough, yet gentle palm he placed his hand on my forehead. I watched as his face turned from bemused to concerned and quickly snapped his hand away. He turned and looked at my Mom, who was still frozen against my wall.<br>"It's just a fever." I said to her, provoking my dad to look back at me. "What's the fuss?"

"Yeah." My dad's expression seemed to change back forcefully. "Just a fever." he agreed, turning back to prize my mother from the wall. "Rest up, honey. We'll get you some...medicine." He said the last word quickly like he'd plucked it out of thin air. He and my mom walked out of the door, whispering down my bedroom stairs.

"It can't be. We need to call Billy."

"I'm sure it's not what you think, Dena."

"John...think about it. A coven of cold ones move into the profanity a few months ago, and now our daughter has a raging fever?"

Their whispering made me furious. An overwhelming state of fizzing, venomous rage poured over me and it was like it was ripping the muscle from my bones. The heat that scorched my skin suddenly felt normal, and I felt a rumble of vocal fury almost roar out of my mouth. I heard footsteps running forcefully to me. Everything went black after that.

I heard the front door click closed which shook me from the memory. The chairs scraped against the floor again, and I heard another voice join the loud whispers.  
>The male voice asked after me, sounding breathless.<p>

"Yeah, she's holding up well." My father answered. "Which is what is worrying us."

"Would you like a drink, Harry?" Dena asked. "Tea?"

"No, I'm fine thanks." Harry Clearwater, his voice was familiar now. "So do we know anymore?"

"Naw." Billy's gruff voice replied. "I was just telling John & Dena that I always thought it would be Jake. The first one I mean." Jacob Black, I scoffed quietly. Why on earth would he think that? The kid's only 15.

"Would it be awful if I wished you were right?" My mother sighed.  
>"Not at all." Billy answered. "Jacob is the grandson of the descendant. I don't understand how Claudia has beaten any of them to it."<p>

"It's not a race, Billy. This wasn't supposed to happen to any of our kids. The Cullen's weren't supposed to come back."  
>Silence invaded the conversation. There was that name again. The Cullen's. Apparently it was in my blood to grimace at the name, but I felt nothing. This "family"<br>were supposed to be an arch enemy of mine, whether I knew it or not, but I felt nothing towards them. Of course, I was curious. A vampire coven, living amongst humans surviving on the blood of animals..who wouldn't want to see that? But as far as anger, or enemies...nothing.

"Yes well..." Billy said. "We have no power over that. They're here, and the treaty is as valid as it was then, but I can't help but feel this is a sign of things to come."

"Ridiculous." My mother scorned. "Billy, I know you're trying to be supportive but I cannot just sit back and watch Claudia self destruct."

Part of me wanted to just slip back into my room, pretending this wasn't happening. But I was angry now and I couldn't stop myself from sliding down the banister of the stairs and jumping effortlessly over the balcony and on to the kitchen floor from a 10 foot height. My mother startled and dropped her tea cup, smashing it all over the floor.

"Speaking of self district..." I laughed.

"Claudia." My Father stood up. I couldn't help but feel a bit smug at my element of surprise. It felt super-human, and I liked it.

"I couldn't quite hear you all talking about me clear enough from the stairs." I snapped, almost dancing over the broken china and to the other side of the room.  
>"So I thought I'd come down so you didn't have to whisper."<p>

Billy Black wheeled himself out from under the table. "We're concerned about you."

"Oh you aren't!" I laughed again. "You're just pissed I beat your boys to the post."

"Claudia, don't be rude." Dena had picked up the broken china, and dusted her hands of it into the bin.  
>"I'm fine. I've told you a thousand time's I'm fine so why are you all having secret meetings about me?"<p>

"I don't believe you." Harry Clearwater said matte of factly. "Anyone would struggle to adjust to this. You don't have to pretend."

"Please!" I rolled my eyes. "I'm strong. I can handle this. I'm not going to go around telling every Tom, Dick and Jacob..." I emphasized on his name. "Who,  
>by the way, is too dumb to even notice any thing's wrong anyways."<p>

"Jacob." Billy eyeballed me angrily. "Jacob has strong instincts. He knows where his roots lie, and if he were in your shoes, he'd be the protection we need from them."

"The Cullen's." I smiled. Everybody watched the body language between Billy and I, letting us have it out. "You said yourself they're no threat to us! They feed on animals!" I laughed in my head, trying not to let my mouth twitch.

"I can't help but feel you don't understand." Billy shook his head. "They've been here for almost a year, and nothing has happened. Your changing is telling me it's for a reason."

"Reason.."

"Yes." Billy replied, looking at me gravely. "You see, we only know the way this...works.." He chose his words carefully. "..from the legends. The legends say that this happens when danger is on the horizon."

What danger? I stifled a laugh again. I really did find it all very hilarious. How terrifying these creatures must be..they preyed on Elk. Pffft.  
>"What danger could there be?" I tried to be serious. "You mean there could be more of them?"<p>

"Yes." Billy stated like it was obvious. "Possibly. I refuse to believe this is completely random." He now addressed my parents. "Claudia needs nurturing, what she has is a gift."

My mom groaned and rubbed her face with her worn hands. My mouth twitched to speak but I felt the tension shift, and willed somebody else to talk. Staring around at all the faces, I started to see why this midnight meeting had taken place. They really believed there was danger coming. I noticed how my father, Harry & Billy looked at me. I knew that look, not from personal experiences but from movies and books. The kind of look Lois Lane gave to superman when he saved her life for the millionth time. The kind of look a weak, vulnerable victim gives to their Saviour. I shuddered, thinking that only a few weeks ago, I'd looked at my father the very same way.


	2. Chapter 2

2

The house was empty the next day, which was both blissful yet unexpected. In my mind, I imagined a hiding from my parents for my behavior last night. I did feel some regret for the events the previous night, but not the reasons I would have expected. I regretted being so cocky. This revelation bothered me the most. I was always cocky. My Dad always said the greatest thing about me, was my complete self acceptance. Of course, this had turned people off me in the past. Females especially. They always assume cockiness is about looks, and physicality. They couldn't be more wrong. Sure, my looks were fine. I inherited my father's emerald eyes. Except his were kinder, and more round than mine. My eyes were more narrow and oval, and mine often glistened in mischief rather than kindness. My mother gave me her Indian, russet skin, and poker straight hair. As a child, she never let me cut my hair.  
>When she was 16, she cut all of her waist long hair off, for reasons she can't even explain. She told me that her hair never ever grew as well and as freely as it had before, so no matter how much I begged and pleaded, she wouldn't let me near a pair of scissors. Cockiness to me, came from my acceptance as who I am as a person. I've never, ever for as long as I can remember, questioned if I'm good enough, or endeavored for people's acceptance. I've never understood the point in it. You're born, and that's it. Live and love what you have, and accept what you don't. This quality of mine, most saw as a flaw. I however, was always the one laughing, and always the one on top.<p>

I entertained myself in front of the TV watching Golden Girls re-runs for the rest of the week, with everyone scurrying around me at 100MPH, and my time slowed down in a blurry haze. Billy hadn't come back to the house since that night, which I could only imagine would be an instruction from Dena. It irritated me how everyone stomped around like everything was normal, walking around on egg shells around me. Part of me thought they were being kind, and giving me space. But the other part of me knew that they just wanted everything to go back to how it was. When everything was normal, and there were no such things as vampires or shape shifters. Was it possible that the world everyone knew was all just a cover up? A cover up for something that children had nightmares about? I hadn't considered this the first time it happened. I couldn't even recall what I had thought that day, when I awoke in the forest on four legs. I remembered screaming, in more terror than I had ever felt. But as much as I screamed, the noise that came out wasn't my voice, but a high pitched howl which rang in my ears.

Shuddering again at the memory, I forced myself from the couch and peeled my hair from the cheek it had molded itself on to. The house seemed eerily empty, and I had to sit for a second to try and remember what day it was. My mind was numb and heavy from the tedious TV watching. I groaned and sauntered and stretched over to the kitchen where I flipped the calender through my fingers. I noticed how Dena had scrawled a star on to the fateful day I had just been recalling. I stifled a bitter laugh at her flippant normalness at the situation, and ran my fingers down the weeks. There was only one other mark on the calender, in thick red pen.

Council meeting - 3PM.

Glancing at the clock, and back to where my finger still lay, it became obvious why the house was empty. A council meeting, I pondered on when the last one had been.  
>I really couldn't remember. There had been several a few years back. Hadn't it been when Billy's father passed away? That was a sad time in La Push. My father had been terribly grief stricken, almost as bad as Billy. Jake could have only been 9 years old, maybe 10. As I could recall it, we made sandcastles in his back yard the day of the funeral. I was 14, one of the eldest kids on the res at the time. A few of the others, Embry and Quil I thought, were with Sam Uley. Jake had asked to stay with me, which at the time made me feel some compelling sisterly protection toward him. Jake and I had grew up together since he was born. I could even remember the day Billy &amp; Sarah brought him home, all tiny and a full head of jet black hair. My mom &amp; dad had taken my 5 year old self around to the Black's modest home, and I'd posed for photos and smiled at the birth of this little bundle of joy. I smiled at that memory, and ran my fingers over several photos that were pinned above the calender. My mom and dad and me when I was born. My dressed up as a bride for a birthday party. The exact photo, of me holding Jake as a tiny baby, a wide childish grins spread across my whole face. The edges of the photo were creased, so I smoothed them with my fingers and brought the photo in my hands. I suddenly felt a wave of guilt flood over me. I pressed the photo lightly to my chest, and thought about Jake for a while motionless. There was a time, I thought, where my parents and Billy had hoped Jake and I would be more than friends. We spent every weekend together for a long time, and my Summer childhood memories were filled with his face. This was the outright reason we would never be more than friends - so much time spent laughing, fighting and talking as a child. Jake was never anything more than a kid brother to me, and I was glad we were never forced to be anything more than that.<p>

The door clattered, and I turned to see my dad lolloping through the door with hand fulls of fish. His face beamed at me, and he shook his trophies at me in glee.

"Look! What a day!" My mother sauntered in after him, lugging the fishing gear with a struggle.

"Mom drop that." I sighed, slipping over the wooden the floor of the kitchen. I grabbed the huge cool box from the floor, and another ridiculously large metal container.

"Claudia you'll snap your-" My mother's eyes widened in wonder as I easily placed the four foot metal container on top of the brimming cool box. I looked at her and shrugged.

"Super human remember?"

"Yes." Dena replied, gawking after me as I grabbed both fishing rods from her and placed the load in the kitchen.

"Treasure!" John boomed his sturdy laugh opening up his container full to the brim of fish. "I've never seen so many fish in the river!"

"Hey Dad.."I crept over to him, my hand over my mouth as I spoke.

"There were some I'd never even seen before!" He continued, rifling bare hand through his stinking treasure. "Charlie is a keen fisherman and even he said he'd never seen so many. Say, Dena.." My dad looked right through me as if I weren't in front of him. "Do you remember Charlie's girl? Isabella?"

"Sure." Dena nodded, tidying up around us. "She lives in California right? With her mother?"

"Arizona." John corrected. "Well, Charlie says she's moving back to good ol' Forks!"

"Oh that's nice. Charlie could do with some company." Dena seemed genuinely pleased. The name did ring a bell to me. I'd known Chief Charlie Swan for as long as I could remember, but i always forgot he'd once had a daughter.

"She must be Claudia's age by now."

"Naw. Claudia was a year or two when she was born. It was just after the Summer, do you remember?" Dena began to laugh. "Billy's girls had the chicken pox and gave them to the whole reservation!"

"Ah!" My Father joined in the laughter. "I do remember that Summer. Charlie and Renee had a scare that night, I think - "

"Hello?" My foot stomped petulantly on the floor. "I'm right here!" Both parents looked at me like I had two heads.

"Yes you are." My dad said.

"Well now I have your attention..." I poked him in his arm hard. "Do you think I could go and see Jacob today?"

"Honey..." I had his full attention now.

"Dad, please. I'm so sick of being cooped up in this house!" My voice whined.

"I don't mind you going, but I can't have you go alone. It's not safe." I could feel the frustration rising up in me. I was so sick of being treated like a silly little kid again. I was so used to being an equal in this house.

"Not safe?" My voice was high and anguished. "I'm a freaking werewolf! I'm pretty sure I can take care of myself!"

"I didn't mean you." My fathers eyes went dark. "I meant for Jake. For anyone. You're only young Claudia, and you're not in control yet."

"Yes. I. am." My teeth ground together. Suddenly the bile of fury rose up my throat in an uncontrollable fashion, and I could feel what was going to happen. I thought the floor was shaking, but I realized quickly it was my legs.

"Claudia calm down." My Father's expression was panicked. They darted between me and my Mother who was almost hyperventilating in the corner of the room. "Breathe. You can't do this now."  
>My father didn't realize that it was already too late. The bile tasted white hot, and felt like it was spouting through every vein and vessel inside of me. My hands balled in to fists,and the sensation of skin coming from my muscles and bones shot through me so i tensed rigid on the spot.<p>

"Get out of the way!" My Father cried out. I could hear him, but it was echoed like I were underwater. The next thing I saw was exceptional red, shifting for a second before suddenly the foreign breathing and growling bared through my foreign mouth. The fury ripped out of me, and everything felt comfortable. It was only then that I realized that I was looking at the my back yard from a great height. Through phasing, my head had ripped through the ceiling of our house leaving a three foot hole around my head.

I couldn't seem to grasp what had happened, all I wanted to do was run. Run fast and break free. The hole in the ceiling bared no guilt in my conscience, as I lept out of the hole, and darted at speed in to the welcoming forest.  
> <p>


End file.
